Khethi Ngwenya (born 25 March 1991 in

Soweto Soweto () is a Township (South Africa), township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western T ...

) is a South African entrepreneur and businessman. He is the founder and managing director of SchoolMedia South Africa's largest Media and community upliftment company within Schools across South Africa. He is also the co-founder of Contilube-SA as well as the Acting Deputy Curator of the Johannesburg

Global Shapers The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer Klaus Schwab. The foundation's s ...

Forum.

Early life

Khethi Ngwenya was born on 25 March 1991 in

South of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

to Mapula and Jabu Ngwenya and spend most of his early years in Mofolo

and in

Witbank Witbank (), officially eMalahleni, is a city situated on the Highveld of Mpumalanga, South Africa, within the Emalahleni Local Municipality, Mpumalanga, Emalahleni Local Municipality. The name Witbank is Afrikaans for "white ridge", and is named ...

. At a young age he started selling hair products in his aunt’s salon to make extra money during school holidays. At 12 he decided to open his own stall selling firecrackers to the local community. At a later stage he moved with his family to Alberton and at 16 joined the Soweto Business Chamber’s organisation, Young Entrepreneurs of Soweto, becoming the CEO at 17.

Significant events and achievements

An initiative with his company SchoolMedia has led to over 4 500 trees being planted across

Gauteng Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

over a 4-year period. In 2012 he started another initiative with the support of

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized in all lowercase since 1949) is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the ...

and

Orlando Pirates Orlando Pirates Football Club, referred to as simply Pirates, is a South African professional football club based in Orlando, Soweto that plays in the top-tier system of Football in South Africa known as Betway Premiership. The team plays i ...

, which has placed 40 new football Goalposts in 20 schools and provided school children with opportunities to meet

stars like

Benni McCarthy Benedict Saul McCarthy (born 12 November 1977) is a South African football coach who is currently the manager of the Kenya national football team. He previously worked as head coach of South African Premier Division team AmaZulu, and as assis ...

and

Daine Klate Daine Klate (born 25 January 1985) is a retired South African football midfielder born in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape. Early life Klate was raised in Gelvandale, a former coloured township in Port Elizabeth. He started playing football for hi ...

, or play a 5-a-side game with these professional athletes.

Awards

In 2013 he was one of the finalist in the Talk

Radio 702 702 or (Talk Radio 702) is a commercial FM radio station based in Johannesburg, South Africa, broadcasting on FM 92.7 and FM 106 to the greater Gauteng province. The station is also webcast via its website. It claims to be Johannesburg's numb ...

Small business awards. In 2017 he was listed the 41st most influential young South African.

Personal life

Khethi is a

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

; he speaks several languages including

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, Zulu,

Sotho Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana *Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an offi ...

Tswana Tswana may refer to: * Tswana people, the Bantu languages, Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions * Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people * Tswanaland, ...

Swati Swati may refer to Films * ''Swati'' (1984 film), a Telugu film * ''Swati'' (1986 film), a 1986 Bollywood romantic drama film * '' Swati Mutyam'', a 1986 Telugu-language drama film written, directed by K. Viswanath * '' Swati Kiranam'', a 1992 ...

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

and some

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

and Portuguese. He is a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

and a member of the

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church. He is of

and Pedi ethnicity.

References

External links